Vascular abnormalities can be serious medical conditions that require prompt and effective treatment. An aneurysm, for example, is a bulging or ballooning portion of the wall of a blood vessel, usually an artery, that is the result of a weakened area of the artery wall. As the aneurysm enlarges, the walls of the artery become thinner, and the risk of rupture increases. A ruptured aneurysm can cause severe hemorrhaging, other complications, and death. Weakened walls of the arteries can be hereditary or can be caused by disease, such as arteriosclerosis.
Conditions such as aneurysms can be treated by reinforcing the artery walls in the weakened areas. For example, vascular devices such as stents, grafts, and stent-grafts can be positioned within the artery proximate the abnormality to preclude blood flow from applying pressure on the damaged area of the vascular wall. Such devices may be delivered to the target site using surgical techniques; however, surgery is invasive and may present additional risks to the health of the patient, especially the elderly.
More recently, intravascular methods have been used to deliver medical devices without requiring surgery. In these cases, the stent-graft, for example, may be delivered to the target site via a delivery catheter that is advanced through the patient's vasculature to the area of the abnormality. The stent-graft, which is carried within the delivery catheter, may be deployed from a distal end of the delivery device and be expanded within the vasculature at the site of the abnormality.
Certain areas of the vasculature can be difficult to treat using traditional intravascular devices and methods. For example, portions of the aorta from which other arteries branch out and/or curved sections of the aorta may pose difficult challenges for the delivery, positioning, and maintaining-in-place of a vascular device.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for intravascularly treating aortic abnormalities in a way that is safe, reproducible, and simple to administer.